4am BST: With now nearly 20 million votes counted out of an estimated total of 33 million, LEAVE are maintaining a 2% lead of 51% against 49% for REMAIN, then this continues to confirm that LEAVE / BrExit are heading for a referendum win because as Jeremy Vine keeps periodically reminding BBC viewers that LEAVE are doing far better than their models suggested they should be, which if maintained implies that LEAVE are definitely heading for referendum win, which compares against the situation of when the polls closed and the release of YouGov's opinion poll of the day that gave REMAIN a commanding 4% lead over LEAVE, which even prompted Nigel Farage to effectively throw in the towel, apparently after talking to his friends in the city who assured him that REMAIN had won.

As things stand LEAVE is leading by huge margin of 410,000 votes, with the LEAVE total now 10,074,141 against REMAIN on 9,964,072, which puts LEAVE on 51.0% and REMAIN on 49.0%, so whilst appearing tight, but in reality not as tight as the headline percentages suggests.

Trading BrExit

As I illustrated in yesterdays article and subsequent video that the markets such as stocks and sterling were erroneously discounting a REMAIN win which therefore offered a relatively good risk / reward opportunity to profit from a LEAVE result given that BrExit was my forecast conclusion.

In terms of trading the markets, and despite the markets apparently no longer treating Brexit consequences seriously, a case of whatever happens it will be business as usual, nevertheless a BrExit outcome will result in sharp downwards swings for sterling and FTSE, even if the moves prove temporary as the politicians and central bank officials are likely to respond to both with market soothing words of nothing has really changed and of course the Bank of England releasing tens of billions of more market liquidity support.

So taking account of my forecast conclusion for a BrExit outcome then the current stock and forex markets are offering the potential for good risk vs reward short-term trades. However remember that volatility will be HIGH which means that even if one gets the direction right then if the stops are not set wide enough then traders can get stopped out of positions BEFORE the profit making moves take place. Or that of REMAIN does win then the market may gap well beyond ones stops resulting in larger losses than the potential that had been allowed for.

And so also are the bookmakers giving what appear to be good risk vs rewards odds of 4.3 to 1.

Friday definitely looks set to be a very interesting trading day, your analyst hoping he does not get stopped out of short side profit making moves!

Sterling

As I mentioned in my 1am update that the immediate market reaction to LEAVE taking the lead was for sterling (GBP) to plunge from just over £/$1.50 to a low of 1.43 recovering to stand at 1.45. Then in my 3am update, I mentioned that sterling took another dive, this time crucially dipping to just below £/$1.40 before recovering to £/$ 1.42. The crucial point being that my take profit level was at £/$1.4040, so sterling was the first market to auto-bank SHORT profits, as even if LEAVE won I was not expecting sterling to spend too much time below 1.40. Subsequently GBP has taken another plunge, this time to a new deeper low of £/$1.35.

Stocks - FTSE Futures

The initial move for FTSE futures following the 10pm YouGov poll was for a sharp rally from about 6330 earlier in the day to a high of 6445 that stopped me out of my FTSE short position along the way at 6375. However subsequently a short from a break below 6310 is now sitting on a near 400 point profit at 5916 (100 point trailing stop) which is set against an earlier 85 point loss. Whilst Dow futures are down near 500 points this morning.

As a LEAVE outcome becomes more certain to the markets than the FTSE could just continue its slide for several hundred more points, so it's difficult to say how low it could go, hence a trailing stop strategy.

And here is a summary of the how things stood at the time the polls closed at 10pm Thursday in terms of EU Referendum expectations -

Financial Markets - REMAIN

Stocks and sterling had literally soared in advance of the voting day, effectively discounting a strong REMAIN victory i.e. between 55% and 60% for REMAIN.

Betting Markets - REMAIN

Similarly the bookmaker odds were discounting a large REMAIN victory, as evidenced by early Thursdays Betfair exchange market odds of LEAVE on 7.1 against REMAIN on 1.1, which converted into an implied probability of 90% for a REMAIN win. However on release of YouGov's 10pm poll effectively giving the EU Referendum to REMAN, Betfair odds shot higher to put LEAVE on 14! Which means £10 bet would have resulted in a £140 win! Better than any odds of the whole of this year, that until Thursday had not seen LEAVE odds widen to much over 6 at best.

My Forecast - LEAVE

Against this is my forecast as of 12th of June, a conclusion based on year long analysis that includes more than 120 articles and more than a dozen videos for a LEAVE victory on 51.3% against REMAIN on 48.7% (12th June 16 - EU Referendum Forecast)

Therefore as things stood just after the polls had closed then on one side of the scale were the bookmakers, financial markets and pollsters all signaling a REMAIN outcome. Whilst tipped up in the air was my forecast for a LEAVE win.

We'll, now those scales have tipped back firmly in favour of LEAVE as the actual votes are being counted. Whilst the count is not over, nevertheless the momentum behind LEAVE going into polling day that I was voicing Wednesday apparently failed to register in any of the models that so called experts have been relying upon, with YouGov topping it off by publishing another worthless opinion poll as the polls closed Thursday, so the pollsters get ANOTHER election wrong!

Nadeem Walayat has over 25 years experience of trading derivatives, portfolio management and analysing the financial markets, including one of few who both anticipated and Beat the 1987 Crash. Nadeem's forward looking analysis focuses on UK inflation, economy, interest rates and housing market. He is the author of five ebook's in the The Inflation Mega-Trend and Stocks Stealth Bull Market series that can be downloaded for Free.

Nadeem is the Editor of The Market Oracle, a FREEDaily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication that presents in-depth analysis from over 1000 experienced analysts on a range of views of the probable direction of the financial markets, thus enabling our readers to arrive at an informed opinion on future market direction. http://www.marketoracle.co.uk

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